At Senate Estimates, I asked the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) about their input into Labor’s Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
Both ACMA and the Minister claim the bill will retain the democratic right to freedom of speech and freedom of political expression. I don’t believe them! The coercive threat of future government action on tech companies will definitely restrict Australians’ political expression.
How can this basic human right be retained when the government and its mouthpiece media will be the only ones with carte blanche to say whatever they want while everyone else’s views will be open to censorship?
Once a government gives itself an advantage like that over its opponents, both in the political arena and among the public, history informs us of the outcome. Democracy enters decline, every single time.
The Insiders in the UN are in control here, they write the scripts for these people in our Governments and the Major Parties involved, they are getting paid quite wellto shut Australians down to claim ownership of our nation from injecting poisions into every one of us to get it . Next year has been the
We are definitely becoming a Communist country!
Freedom of speech, Rights, what are those?
Malcolm, the discussion here clearly shows that ACMA wants to be able to decide what is mis/disinformation. They are not even attempting to hide the fact that a) they have done this previously and b) want to do more of it. Unless this can be stopped completely, we are all in for serious trouble. I know from personal experience how YouTube for example uses AI to detect statements that target the likes of the UN and WEF. This has to be one of the most important issues of our time, preventing people seeing different sides to a story. I think your royal commission into the covid response should include this area of investigation.
As an admin and creator of Tamborine Mountain Fearless Free Thinkers (2017) i am already personally restricted and threatened with further restrictions both personally and for the group for supposedly breaking “community standards”. The community standards in regard to the C0^!d jab are that the vast majority were either forced or indoctrinated into getting the jab. So of course i breached community standards in speaking out and sharing information from alternative professional experts who stood against the Pharmaffia narrative. My freedom of speech is already being monitored, controlled and decided upon by so called independent fact checkers. Who is paying their salary will determine how independent they are. This is not a democracy, it is a totalitarian taxfarm controlled by the UN/WHO/WEF globalist Pharmaffia..
You are 100% right Guy. Do you remember when Albo, just after they were elected, ran to the UN with their renewables agenda? Talk about commit to the devil. I hope One Nation’s royal commission into C0^!d gets off the ground. That will really set a cat amongst the pigeons world-wide. But I will be surprised if it does given the powerful forces and guilty parties involved.
Nail on the head John! It seems they want the absolute right to redefine what is ‘harm’ for the community. They have taken the false pretext of COVID to do so in order to ‘protect us all’. That is, harm now has the wider meaning… that just like COVID any unapproved ‘government’ advice(the protectors of harm) should be regarded by the community as harmful. Health has become weaponised and we should be shouting this from the rooftops! This has been going on with alternative integrative doctors from AHPRA before COVID…same story they put out period of submissions for terms of new ‘Code of Conduct’ in 2019. In the ‘draft paper’ was statement that the new ‘tighter restrictions’ ie speaking on alternative treatments on social media would be grounds for licence suspension and investigation. Now this has been applied for the rest of society. So it would be correct to imply the same source driving the agenda for AHPRA seems also at work here.
Gday Anthony, what will be the penalty for ACMA when 90% of all of their truths turn out to be harmful lies, or “mistruths” as they call them? If they are the spreaders of harmful mis-information, what then? There should be a regular accounting in senate estimates of what posts were filtered out (removed, de-prioritised etc) in line with the ACMA standards and why; have them assessed publicly and opposing views heard. After all, if we are the public being protected by ACMA from harmful mis-information, shouldn’t we have the right to determine if they are doing their job?
We know the slippery slope this will lead us on ! We have to stop this but how ???
If you get the opportunity again Malcolm, it would be good to know the following:
1. ACMA cannot directly monitor and censor social media content, therefore that will use standards, threat of penalties and other influence (?) to coerce social media sites to comply. By what standard or process will ACMA require social media sites to determine what posts constitute mis/dis-information (MDI)? What standards and guidelines are they currently planning; is there a draft?
2. How did ACMA first decide that there was a need to implement these measures and what research of the public was done, if any to back it up esp. regarding “harm”?
3. C Brown stated that there were a number of safeguards to “protect freedom of expression and political debate”. What exactly are those “safeguards”; at what point will a social media post be deemed “harmful”; what is the “high bar for serious harm” she referred to and what is meant by “serious harm”?
4. How will ACMA ensure that social media sites do not over-censor just to be careful? Will there be any discussion between ACMA and social media sites regarding what ACMA considers to be MDI (presumably using examples) so that those sites have a clear criteria for what posts need to be removed or otherwise dealt with eg. made less visible, based on examples? In this way will ACMA substantially influence the eventual criteria and code for assessing posts, and will they be approving the resulting “voluntary codes”?
5. During the covid period what requests were made by Home Affairs of social media sites regarding MDI and for each of those requests – what was the background including what information was considered untrue or harmful and why (based on what factual data, criteria etc.)? Will the same or similar criteria be used in the future by ACMA in defining MDI in its standards or guidelines?
6. In relation to point 5 – has any evidence come to light that makes the basis of any of those requests inaccurate and therefore mis-information?
7. What are the reserve powers of ACMA and how will they be applied?